Category: In Case You Missed It O’ The Day

Did anyone actually believe HAMAS was going to keep its promises?

You almost — almost — have to respect Hamas for the sheer audacity of today’s announcement.

Welp, So Much for Trump’s Gaza Peace Plan

Surprising almost nobody, Hamas today rejected essential points in Phase 2 of President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan with defiant conditions that the fractured terrorist group is in zero condition to enforce.

In a statement before today’s UN vote on Trump’s proposal, Hamas (translation courtesy of open-source intel guy “Raylan Givens“) said it opposes “the disarmament of Gaza” and insisted that “any discussion about weapons will be within a Palestinian framework related to ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state.”

Calling Trump’s plan “dangerous,” Hamas described it as “an attempt to impose international guardianship over the Strip” and claimed that “humanitarian aid could become a tool of blackmail that pushes out UNRWA and Palestinian institutions.”

“Any international force must be directly subordinate to the UN and work in coordination with the official Palestinian institutions, without the participation of the occupation,” Hamas said in reference to Israel in that last bit. Hamas wants the UN to run things because the UN is friendly to Hamas and hostile to Israel. UNRWA — the UN organization responsible for “relief” in Gaza — is essentially run by Hamas.

But guess what? Losing is supposed to suck — and it’s exactly what ought to happen when you start a war with the murder of 1,100 or so civilians and kidnap 250 others.

None of this is to imply that Trump’s plan was a total failure. Implementation of Phase 1 got all 20 living hostages back to Israel and the bodies of around 20 others murdered while held under Hamas’ tender mercies. Only three bodies are believed left in Gaza.

You almost — almost — have to respect Hamas for the sheer audacity of today’s announcement. The terrorist organization doesn’t merely assert a legal sovereignty it never had, it also acts as though it hadn’t been thoroughly beaten on the field of battle, or that the only reason there are still any of them left in Gaza is the same ceasefire they just rejected.

That’s enough to make me wonder, if only for a moment, whether President Trump should have stayed hands-off until Israeli forces had completely occupied the Strip and eliminated Hamas. But then I think of those hostages, finally home after two hellish years. Trump’s ceasefire also gave Israel much-needed diplomatic breathing space, particularly from our so-called allies in London, Paris, and Ottawa, hell-bent on legitimizing Hamas. Now, when the ceasefire fails, the onus is on Hamas for choosing war over peace.

So, yeah, even with Phase 2 effectively Tango-Uniform, Trump’s diplomacy was worth it. Phase 1 didn’t do anything to help Hamas, but it did get nearly all of the hostages home, dead or alive.

What happens next? Well, if Hamas doesn’t want a ceasefire, there’s no reason for Israel to keep the IDF on its side of the ceasefire line for one second longer than it takes to lock and load, if that’s what the government decides is right.

As Richard DeCamp wryly noted on X this morning, “So what I’m taking away from that is Hamas wants Israel to finish the job.”

What other choice has Hamas left them?

Coffee’s delicious journey from tiny bean to tasty brew.

Whether you’re an early bird or a night owl, coffee is probably part of your daily routine. Since 2004, the number of American adults who’ve enjoyed a daily cup of java has jumped up 37 percent, the highest level in more than 20 years, according to the National Coffee Association. But coffee is hardly a new invention. Its roots go all the way back to 850 CE , when coffee beans were first cultivated in the Arabian colony of Harar near present-day Ethiopia.

“From there, coffee was transported to Mecca and spread throughout the Arabian continent,” Bryan Quoc Le, food scientist and CEO at Mendocino Food Consulting, tells Popular Science. “But only in the 1600s did Venetian merchants record seeing a blackish beverage that resembled modern coffee, and brought coffee beans to Europe.”

Throughout this history, the way we grow, prepare, and serve coffee has changed. According to Samo Smrke, a research associate at Zurich University of Applied Sciences’ Coffee Excellence Center, there’s not a whole lot of other foods that receive the same level of processing as coffee–and every tiny step, from the soil it’s grown into to the temperature it’s boiled at has an impact on flavor.

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The Secret Religious History of April Fools’ Day

April Fools’ Day is fast approaching here, a holiday where one must be skeptical of everything they hear (and potentially still fall for a prank or two). It’s a fun day of japes and jokes… but where exactly did it come from, anyway? And how did the first day of April become synonymous with pranks and put-ons?

Well, the truth is a little murky. But some historians say April Fools’ Day’s origins can be traced all the way back to ancient religious celebrations during the Middle Ages, including some eyebrow-raising Christian feast days.

No foolin’ here: this is the secret religious history of April Fool’s Day.

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Something, something, OODA Loop, something.

The fight over this will be interesting, and ugly, and I don’t see where Trump has anything to lose from it. – Glenn Reynolds

1 Timothy 5:8
KJV
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.

“You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.” – VPOTUS J.D. Vance.

OVERRIDE
INSIDE THE REVOLUTION REWIRING AMERICAN POWER

The clock struck 2 AM on Jan 21, 2025.

In Treasury’s basement, fluorescent lights hummed above four young coders. Their screens cast blue light across government-issue desks, illuminating energy drink cans and agency badges. As their algorithms crawled through decades of payment data, one number kept growing: $17 billion in redundant programs. And counting.

“We’re in,” Akash Bobba messaged the team. “All of it.”

Edward Coristine’s code had already mapped three subsystems. Luke Farritor’s algorithms were tracing payment flows across agencies. Ethan Shaotran’s analysis revealed patterns that career officials didn’t even know existed. By dawn, they would understand more about Treasury’s operations than people who had worked there for decades.

This wasn’t a hack. This wasn’t a breach. This was authorized disruption.

While career bureaucrats prepared orientation packets and welcome memos, DOGE’s team was already deep inside the payment systems. No committees. No approvals. No red tape. Just four coders with unprecedented access and algorithms ready to run.

“The beautiful thing about payment systems,” noted a transition official watching their screens, “is that they don’t lie. You can spin policy all day long, but money leaves a trail.”

That trail led to staggering discoveries. Programs marked as independent revealed coordinated funding streams. Grants labeled as humanitarian aid showed curious detours through complex networks. Black budgets once shrouded in secrecy began to unravel under algorithmic scrutiny.

By 6 AM, Treasury’s career officials began arriving for work. They found systems they thought impenetrable already mapped. Networks they believed hidden already exposed. Power structures built over decades revealed in hours.

Their traditional defenses—slow-walking decisions, leaking damaging stories, stonewalling requests—proved useless against an opponent moving faster than their systems could react. By the time they drafted their first memo objecting to this breach, three more systems had already been mapped.

“Pull this thread,” a senior official warned, watching patterns emerge across DOGE’s screens, “and the whole sweater unravels.”

He wasn’t wrong. But he misunderstood something crucial: That was exactly the point.

This wasn’t just another transition. This wasn’t just another reform effort. This was the start of something unprecedented: a revolution powered by preparation, presidential will, and technological precision.

The storm had arrived. And Treasury was just the beginning.

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Today Is Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemorating the victims of Nazi genocide, particularly Jews.

Adolf Hitler and his Nazis massacred an estimated 17 million-plus people during their relatively brief but extremely deadly reign of terror. These included Catholics and other Christians, Soviet civilians, Serbs, Poles, Roma, disabled individuals, and, most infamously, 6 million Jews from many nations. In fact, 80 years after the Holocaust, the worldwide Jewish population has yet to recover from its decimation.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day because it is the anniversary of the Allied liberation of Auschwitz, the most infamous and deadly of the dozens of Nazi concentration camps. Holocaust survivor and nonagenarian Manfred Goldberg today remembered his experiences entering and being held in Auschwitz as a 13-year-old. “Work sets you free,” the Auschwitz gate sign said in German. “It became realistic that once you walked through that gate, you were under a sentence of death,” Goldberg recalled.

He was sent to Auschwitz with his mother and brother. “When we finally reached the camp, we each were inspected as to our potential of slave laboring,” Goldberg remembered. “He decided apparently that I was fit for slave labor and pointed me in the direction of those surviving. My little brother, age nine, did not so he lost his life, he was murdered.”

As Westerners increasingly seem in danger of forgetting the horrors of the Holocaust and even outright supporting Islamic jihadis who want to commit a second Holocaust, Goldberg is determined to educate younger generations.

“I’m only a drop in the ocean. But I’ve made up my mind that as long as God gives me the strength, physical and mental, to continue doing it, I have committed myself to keep on doing it,” the 94-year-old Holocaust survivor said.

Galina Bailin was a Ukrainian who survived the Holocaust and moved to Israel, where she suffered the horrible heartbreak of burying her daughter Zena, whom Hamas terrorists murdered on Oct. 7, 2023. “During the Shoah [Holocaust] when I was a little girl, I wasn’t afraid because my mother was protecting me,” Galina said. “But now, on Oct. 7, I was afraid, and I feel guilty I couldn’t protect my daughter the way my mother protected me. At my daughter’s funeral, I felt like my life was over, that I no longer had a reason to live. But my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, they say, ‘Grandma, we need you.’ They are the ones keeping me alive.”

The scars remain, not just for Holocaust survivors and those who lost family to the Nazi genocide but for millions of others. In 1939, the global Jewish population was 16.6 million, but by the end of 2020, it was 15.2 million, and in 2024, 15.8 million. Now there is once again a global wave of antisemitism from Islamic terrorists and Western wokies. The Hamas Oct. 7 massacre of Israelis was the worst day of slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, and extreme violence continues not only against Israelis but against Jews around the world, from Amsterdam to New York.

We must fight the new Nazism of our times. “Never Again” is now.

Trump Warns ‘All Hell Will Break Out’ If Gaza Hostages Aren’t Released Before Inauguration

President-elect Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Hamas terrorists in Gaza, vowing that “all hell will break out” if the hostages held by them are not released before his inauguration on January 20. Trump made it clear that his administration would not tolerate the continued suffering of innocent Americans and other hostages, promising swift and decisive action once he is sworn in as the 47th president.

His remarks underscore the situation’s urgency and starkly contrast the Biden administration’s handling of the crisis, as Trump reiterated his commitment to ensuring the safety and security of American citizens abroad.
During an interview with conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, Trump was asked what exactly he meant when he said “all hell will break out” if Hamas doesn’t follow orders.

“Exactly what it says — if those hostages aren’t released by the time I get office, there will be hell to pay,” Trump reiterated. “I don’t think I have to get into it, but it won’t be the word ‘don’t.’” Trump was referring to the joke of a warning outgoing President Joe Biden made on October 10, 2023, in a speech vowing his support for Israel after Hamas initially attacked the Jewish state.

Trump cautioned that if Hamas terrorists don’t release the remaining hostages before he takes office, “it won’t be good for anyone.” The president-elect’s comments come after Steve Witkoff, Trump’s pick to serve as the special envoy to the Middle East, expressed optimism that a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is making “a lot of progress.” He appeared sure that by the time Trump was inaugurated, there would be “good things” to announce on behalf of the new administration.

“It’s the president, his reputation, the things that he has said that are driving this negotiation, and so hopefully, it’ll all work out, and we’ll save some lives,” Witkoff said, echoing the same stern warning to Hamas saying, “This better get done by the inaugural.”

159 Democrats voted to value illegal aliens who commit crimes over you. Let that sink in.